Newsflash: There Is No One-Size-Fits-All Model to Happiness At Work

Happiness at work is hot. People and organizations all across the world are eagerly trying to improve the way we work. Not just to improve the lives of the large number of disengaged employees, but also to make companies, NGOs, hospitals and schools more successful, effective, and productive. And there’s a good reason for it: there is a huge amount of untapped potential within organizations since only a tiny part of the workforce is truly engaged with their work. The fact that happiness at work is trending seems to be a good thing, but the way most companies are trying to “implement it” is fundamentally flawed.

In an effort to create a better workplace, lots of companies believe that there is a fixed model available that will solve their problems instantly: implement this magic model and a “happy company” is guaranteed. Unfortunately, this ain’t true for a bit. Because, if such a model did actually exist, a lot more than the current 13% of the world’s workforce would be engaged.

While the intention of increasing happiness at work is a good thing, the way it’s executed is often doomed to fail. Let’s summarize some of the lessons we’ve learned during our research.